Featured obituary: Mrs. Gloria Blackwell

The big dining room table in her Gloverville home was a favorite spot for Gloria Blackwell.

She loved to sit there because as family and friends walked in to visit she would guide them to the table, sit them down and talk to them.

"She's just real family-oriented," said her daughter Pam Meyer, of Clearwater. "She's the leader of the family. She kept everybody going."

Mrs. Blackwell, daughter of Alex C. Baker, a former Aiken County Board of Education member, was born in Bath and never left the Midland Valley area, Ms. Meyer said.

When Mrs. Blackwell's mother, Mattie Baker, developed Alzheimer's disease and needed to be put in a nursing home, Mrs. Blackwell went to nursing school.

"She went through schooling and got her certificate because she worried about my grandmother. Mama went and got a job there so she could be close to my granny," Ms. Meyer said.

Mrs. Blackwell worked at Mattie C. Hall Nursing Home as a nursing assistant for more than nine years, then retired in 1988 to stay at home with Ms. Meyer's first child.

Mrs. Blackwell went to the same nursing home when she became ill with emphysema.

"The people remembered her from when she worked with them," Ms. Meyer said.

Mrs. Blackwell, 74, and her husband, Victor, were married for 36 years.

"They were very close. He was her rock," Ms. Meyer said. "We had old pictures out looking at them Saturday, and that brought us a lot of comfort, just looking back at how she was."

Ms. Meyer said her mother held all the family events at her house.

"We're all real close. Even when she passed, we had stayed, four days and nights, by her bed, and we were all standing there. It was real easy, and that was a comfort," Ms. Meyer said.

"She lifted everybody up that she was around."

Other survivors include two daughters, Carol Ford and Sharon Parker; a son, Tommy Musz-all; and two brothers, Joseph Baker and Ladson Baker.

The funeral was Sunday at Hatcher Funeral Home in Langley, with burial in Langley Cemetery.

Reach Carly Phillips at (803) 648-1395 or carly.phillips@augustachronicle.com.